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User blog:Nauibotics/Fates Class and Skill Guide
Hello once again everyone! It's been about three years since the last time I made a blog here. My last time was doing a Class and Skill guide for Fire Emblem Awakening, now its time to move on to the newest Fire Emblem game to come out in the west, Fire Emblem Fates! Like the guide for Awakening I made, I've compiled all classes, including the DLC ones, and added a few analysis of their strengths and weaknesses of the classes and their skills. Please note that this is the first draft and names written here are the ones we know of in English. Several will be changed in the next few days and I will return later to update them once I can. Pre-Notes I use several terms throughout this guide, though the most notable one is what is known as Area of Effect, or AOE for short. In Awakening, Rally skills used an AOE effect as well as a few others like Anathema and Charm. while most max out at 3-tile range, all AOE skills of Fates are 2-tile maximum. In case you need to know what exactly that looks like, I included an image to the right to show what units receive the AOE effects (highlighted in green) and those who do not (In Red). The user always benefits from their own skill for those applied to enemies. Ones that benefit allies generally only benefit allies and not the user. All Classes (By Class and Skill) Main Classes Base Classes *Nohr Prince/Nohr Princess — A member of royalty with the power of dragons coursing through their veins. This is your Avatar's base class. Like Awakening's Avatar, this class is exclusive to the Avatar and their children. For the most part, you have mixed damage thanks to using Sword for physical damage and Dragonstones for magic damage. Overall, you'll have a decent time with this class, flexibly shifting between offensive styles to train. **Nobility — Like Veteran in Awakening, Nobility serves as your Avatar's main method of gaining extra EXP in battles. Though the multiplier has been reduced to 1.2x, it does not require you to use the Attack Stance or Guard Stance to activate it. Consider keeping it on your Avatar and Children units until you drop it off later when you can no longer gain levels. **Dragon Fang — In an odd situation, you get an attacking skill before you promote. It has a high activation rate compared to most attacking skill and essentially gives your attacks a 1.5x attack boost. It is a skill worth keeping in the long run. *Songstress — A beautiful singer whose melodies enchant an invigorate allies. Azura's exclusive class and basically the Fates Dancer class. As the stereotypical dancer unit, they are frail but are offset by good speed and skill to dodge attacks. In Awakening, Olivia could still be offensively viable thanks to all classes having A-Rank maximum weapon mastery, but the Songstress has a Lance weapon mastery of only C, limiting her role flexibility. Nevertheless, she'll excel at supportive play thanks to her skills **Luck +4 — Due to her weak defenses adding 4 to her luck increases Azura's dodge skills. Later on though this can be shelved, but only when she is at a safe Luck level or has better skills at her disposal. **Inspiring Song — A slightly nerfed version of Special Dance. It will only increase a units Speed, Skill, and Luck if Azura sings for them. If planning on using Azura exclusively in her Songstress role, this skill is a must for maximum benefits from Azura's songs. **Voice of Peace — An AOE skill that reduces enemy damage to units within Azura's skill area by 2. This skill further compliments Azura's supportive strengths as her Personal Skill has an 2-tile AOE effect, so stacking more 2-tile AOE effects gives her more utility. Fixed reducing damage is important in this game as it is a guaranteed reduction, rather than calculated reductions which can vary. 2 may not seem much, but having compounded damage reduction can generate incredible damage reduction totals. **Foreign Princess — The Songstress' second AOE skill, It will reduce damage received from enemies by 2 while increasing damage dealt to them by 2 if they are in their area. Again, this compounds with other AOE skills so consider it a strong choice of a skill. Promoted Classes *Nohr Noble — The Nohr Prince/Nohr Princess' promotion in the Conquest and Revelations route. True to the glory seeking nature of Nohr, this class embodies that conquering nature with a heavy emphasis on pure offense to slaughter all who oppose. This class values an aggressive nature, highlighted by its new weapon, Tomes, for more magic options. **Draconic Hex — After a battle involving the user in which they do not die, the enemy has all stats reduced by 4. A great skill for crippling units as a 4 stat drop equates to roughly a 10% stat drop in Fates. If you are struggling to take down an enemy, using this skill will give you a decent crippling effect to take down even the hardiest of enemies. **Nohrian Trust — The user can use any battle skill of any supporting unit in an Attack Stance or Guard Stance. Quite possibly one of the best offensive skills in the game. Although it takes away one skill from your 5, having the right units next to the user can amount to an impressive 9 battle skill readily available for battle. You can take advantage of this by applying pure offensive skills on your user and having a supporting user with defensive skills like Counter, Pavise, Aegis, and more for a truly terrifying frontline attacker. *Hoshido Noble — The Nohr Prince/Nohr Princess' promotion in the Birthright and Revelations Route. As peaceful as the nation of Hoshido, this class values the preservation of allies lives with protective skills to live out the atrocities of war. This class adds more supportive options, giving the user the ability to use Staves to heal allies and provide necessary aid when needed. **Dragon Ward — The user grants adjacent allies the ability to halve all incoming damage with an activation rate of half the allies' Luck stat. Unlike the more case sensitive Pavise and Aegis, Draconic shield activates for all incoming attacks. It has about half the activation rate of both of those skills, but considering that the user can provide the chance to have those effects activate to four allies at once, it has some good potential for tightly knit formations in battle **Hoshidan Unity — The user increases the activation rates of all Skills by 10%. It is basically the Fates version of Rightful King and applies to all skills the user has on. Having this on board certainly can help if you are REALLY reliant on your skills activating. Though you may want to have all skill that rely on activation rates to fully abuse this skill to its maximum. Hoshido Classes Inspired by Japan, Hoshido gives old classes a more Japanese flair. However, many of the classes of the nation are new types of classes. Base Classes *Samurai — Who needs Myrmidons when you can have Samurais? Under a new name, they still are the same Skill and Speed based units with decent strength to take down most foes. They do have low defenses so they avoid damage rather than trying to endure them. They will be one of the most standard foot soldier units available and are always reliable for offense. **Duelist Blow — The first of many new "Blow" skills, a set of skills that activate whenever the user initiates a battle. Duelist Blow increases Avoid by 30, which is a nice bonus. Great for low skill and speed units to at least dodge damage when initiating combat. Just make sure if you use it for this purpose, they'll be in the clear post fight. **Vantage - Ah Vantage, my vintage. Like Awakening, this is one skill I cannot live without. No changes from its past, if a unit is under 50% health, they will always attack first, even during the enemy turn, whenever they have the proper weapon range to counter attack. Highly recommended on any build, and especially for multi-range units. *Ninja — Silent killers who attack from the shadows...or at least in Japanese lore, these nimble units are less about stealthy kills and just focus on killing in general or at least setting them up. They do not have the highest damage output thanks to their weapon of choice, but if they don't kill you, at least their weapon will cripple you enough for some one else to finish the job. Bonus, they are also good lockpickers so don't worry about the lack of thieves in Birthright, these ninjas got you covered. **Locktouch — Your chest opening, door unlocking, trap disarming skill. The only skill shared between two completely different classes. Good for story maps, not so much for PvP or general training. **Poison Strike — Poison Strike is an interesting skill. Whenever the user attacks an enemy, regardless of how much damage they deal, the enemy will lose 20% of their max health after the duels conclusion. Great for low damage units, like shuriken users or for whittling down high Defense armor units. *Spear Fighter — The age old Soldier class finally has made it as an non-armor unit lance-wielding foot soldier unit and has not been seen since the Tellius Series. It's a truly beautiful day. A nice balance of stats means that they are very good normal combat units without having to slowed down by heavy armor. ** *Oni Savage — Channeling their inner demon...er Oni, these rough and tough club users are a little slower and less skilled than Fighters, but they are much better at taking damage and constantly keep up a fight. For the Birthright route, this is your only base class Axe-wielding unit, making them extremely useful in combat. In fact, there is only one unit in all of Fates that starts off in this class, making the class more unique and special when used. *Apothecary — "Is this love - is this love - is this love - Is this love that I'm feelin'?" These masters of herbal medicines prove that even doctors can be a part of warfare. While they do not make these remedies for their allies, they know how to get the most of their herbal concoctions to ensure that they reap the most benefits. With an ample supply for them, they become very interesting units, both offensively and defensively. They do use bows, but they are not exactly the replacement or by any means superior to the Archers. They are an interesting unit for any army. Just follow the label on the bottle and every lil' thing is gonna be al'right. *Archer — Still up to their old tricks, these Bow wielding units are still the best Anti-Air units you can find. Now, thanks to the new and improved Weapon Triangle there are even MORE usage for them rather than just being your go to physical distance attacker. They are the counters for the newest weapon in Fates, Shuriken, and are good against lance wielders. Just leave them away from direct combat and everything will go better than expected. *Diviner — No flashy elemental spells from these spell weavers, instead they literally call upon the power of their spirit animals through Scrolls to attack their enemies. Still, they are the same as your class Mage units in the past. Same great units for attacking from a distance and exploiting low resistances, now with 50% more Ox summoning. *Shrine Maiden/Monk — The former are your Miko Miko Nurses, the latter are pretty much just male Shrine Maidens...yeah...that's about it. The Cleric/Monk class has become much more Japanese than you remember, but they still operate as the main early game healers. As they have no means to protect themselves with a weapon, once again NEVER let them be attacked or else you'll be sorry. *Sky Knight — The class that was once only for the purest of maidens has now allowed men to finally be able to ride these majestic winged horses. Mobile, fast, and skillful, this airborne unit still commands the sky. They'll be hot targets for Archer units so mind them when used and they won't be shot out of the sky. Good news is, no more wind magic so the skies will see a lot less turbulence than in past games. *Villager — The classic trainee class has finally grown up, becoming a full-fledged first-tier class rather than a trainee class. While restricted to one character once more, it can work on its own for the early game of Fates, but at least can use the Master Seal to promote out of it, rather than having to reclass and THEN promote. Still carries the same traits of the classic trainee version of it so at least there still is some ground. *Kitsune — These fluffy fox people are just as playful as their trickster counterparts in Japanese lore. With a Beaststone in hand, they can assume their vulpes forms and dart around the battle field, piling damage on their foes and sneaking away after they have properly confused and befuddled their enemies. Similar to the Taguel of Awakening, they focus more on speed rather than brute strength, so rely on them for taking down similarly elusive enemies. What does the fox say? "LANDMASTER!" Promoted Classes Nohr Classes Nohr's classes are, for the most part, close to many staple classes in the past Fire Emblem games. Base Classes *Cavalier — Your faithful horse mounted units since the beginning of the franchise, now without Cain and Abel units in this class. You will always have one so you can always depend on this class on any route you encounter. *Knight — Still just a slow as ever, but still can take a physical blow like a literal brick wall, Knights are still your go to physical barrier to stave away your enemy's attempts at attacking your more fragile units. *Mercenary — *Fighter — *Outlaw *Dark Mage *Wyvern Knight *Troubadour *Wolfskin — The only true new base class introduced on the Nohr side, these are literally lone wolves considering you are limited to just two guaranteed. Unlike Kitsune and Taguels, and really wolves in general, these are hulking juggernauts, able to take a hit and dish out incredibly powerful blows. I personally think they are more like the crazy nastyass honey badger than they are wolves. I mean look at it, these wolfskin don't care, they don't give a sh*t. They can get attacked like a thousand times and they'll smack the sh*t out of anyone who attacks it. Promoted Classes DLC Classes Naui's Top 10 Reccomendation